I met Uncle Sam in a parking garage off 14th street, midway between the Capitol building and the White House. The meeting was arranged by a certain Madam X, who claims to have had an affair with Uncle Sam and prefers to remain anonymous, as the wife is unaware, but, according to Madam X, “a spiteful bitch who can overthrow your regime in a heartbeat.”
We had agreed by phone to do a Q and A in person. I wanted to be certain it was really he. I was not disappointed, Sam showed wearing the striped top hat and goatee for which he is renowned, a bold sneer emblazoned across his leathery face.
JB: Mr. Sam, in keeping with the hottest current news story, why are you overthrowing the government of Venezuela?
Sam: That would be establishing democracy.
JB: But the people of Venezuela voted for President Maduro.
Sam: Maduro is a dictator—don’t take my word for it, look at what the Washington Post, PBS and MSNBC say.
JB: When Jimmy Carter monitored Venezuelan elections he said they were the best in the world, so Maduro is not a dictator, he was fairly elected by the Venezuelan people.
Sam: Okay, the reason then is freedom.
JB: Freedom how?
Sam: They’re hungry and have no medicine, we want them to have these things.
JB: But when the oligarchs were running the country before the Bolivarian Revolution, you didn’t care if the majority mixed-race poor were hungry and without medicine, and your economic actions are largely responsible for shortages now.
Sam: Well, there you go again. You bleeding heart pinkos worry about peasants when it’s the economy that counts. You haven’t heard of “trickle down economics?”
JB: Venezuelans began to get free food and medical care under President Hugo Chavez, and yes, I’m aware of your theory, been trickled down on a lot by your capitalist friends.
Sam: But that’s socialism, and the USA does not allow that. Look at President Trump’s State of the Union. We will never allow socialism.
JB: It’s socialism to provide food for the hungry and medical care to those in need? Anyhow, where does it say in the Constitution you are always citing as the law that we must have laissez faire capitalism?
Sam: You’re taking from the rich to give away food and medicine.
JB: I forgot, your capitalism is about giving everything to the rich, and letting poor people die from want after working to produce wealth for those who inherit for a living. Hugo Chavez said the rich could have free food too, if they wanted, and it came from sales of state owned oil, not the rich.
Sam: You should be happy you live in the freest country on earth, with the most open government. And we don’t like what you said in the shower the other day.
JB: Are you spying on me?
Sam: For national security reasons, I can’t answer that. But you working class Americans have it made, unlike the Venezuelans.
JB: I think you push the same capitalism for us. Working class American wages, allowing for inflation, have dropped since 1973 you know, as the plutocrats who rent our elections have taken the difference for themselves.
Sam: If that’s true, why don’t I read it in Newsweek, or hear about it on NPR or ABC News? You could get in big trouble for fake news you know, and not giving us your sources to lock up, since I’m guessing they’re not corporate viewpoint media, which have been ruled by my courts as without the rights of journalists.
JB: But you were telling me I am free . . .? Anyhow, my information is correct.
Sam: Only if we don’t label you enemy combatant and take away your citizenship. You see, we have the freedom to do that, in the freest country on earth. It’s all about freedom, really. You should be thankful we have not arrested you and had you waterboarded.
JB: Thank you for not waterboarding me, but can we get back to why you are overthrowing President Maduro in Venezuela?
Sam: He is sitting on our oil, like those Iraqis tried to do. They should go back where they came from.
JB: And that would be . . .?
Sam: You leftists don’t know much do you? It’s all a plot to take our oil. But don’t take my word for it, ask the New York times, ABC News, or Newsweek journalists, they will all tell you the same thing, right off the script. They all support the coup—check out their latest print and video. They all say Maduro is a dictator who has to be overthrown. The entire free press agrees with me.
JB: How can you just keep invading and taking other peoples’ things?
Sam: Are you anti-American or something? We are liberating our oil, now is that so hard to say. We don’t invade. We bring democracy and freedom.
JB: You get the last word, Sam, you always get the last word in the Land of the Free.
